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Women – a Muslim Commodity?

And for love to live through a life long marriage, it has to be founded on mutual respect, consideration, attraction and friendship.

Marriage is about giving and taking. Giving willingly and gladly, and taking carefully and gratefully.

Marriage is not about equity, it’s not about rights. It’s about putting somebody else’s good before your own, about teamwork and togetherness.

I have never been able to understand the islamic view on marriage. It seems to be all about rights. And the rights are explicit. “The right of the husband to demand sex even if his wife is cooking”, “The right of the husband to be obeyed”, “The right of the husband to forbid his wife to leave the house”, “The right of the wife to be fed, as long as she doesn’t refuse her husband sex”. etc.

Islamic scholars defend this view on marriage by saying that married life is not a Hollywood dream, so it must be regulated and Allah has granted men certain rights and women other rights, one degree lower.

I know for sure, married life is no Hollywood dream. But I also know that the only true foundation for love in a marriage where husband and wife respect each other is equality and mutual giving. Voluntary giving.

I believe that islamic equity as basis for marriage is also the basis for inequality, oppression and pain in marriage. This view on marriage is what brings about islamist horrors like this – muslim men in search of wives.

I know men from western countries have raped in war – but they wouldn’t call their victims “wives”.

It says a lot about the difference between the status of a wife in the West, and a muslim wife.

106 thoughts on “Women – a Muslim Commodity?”

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//AND it says in the quran that she must obey him because he has bought her (spends on her).//

when i said some thing similar in another thread, you shared with me a link of some muslim feminist do you remember? at least i think Quran does not ask wives to obey their husbands instead it says obey Allah.

Fiona A man has responsibility to provide. Now if husband is well off and wife doesn’t want to work than obviously she will have to assume responsibilities at home. If wife is working than obviously both will have to share responsibilities.
If wife wants to work and Husband wants to keep her financially independent than here we have a problem.

//A master and his slave, or whore since islam also states that a woman must have sex with her husband whenever he demands it. Isn’t that so?//
Fiona does Allah say that? in Quran? if yes, than it is really sad. Please don’t quote any hadith because it is a historical record of prophet and i cannot figure it out myself if The hadith is sahih or not.
more over it does not relegates wife to the level of whore. She is more of a victim of sexual abuse to me.

Research shows that the marriages most likely to succeed, in the part of the world where people are free to make choices, are the marriages that are most equal – where husband and wife quite naturally share all the work in the home, where the husband uses half of the maternity/paternity leave and assumes half of all responsibility with the children, where husband and wife are equally proud of each others achievements and support each other accordingly. So I believe you should look for a spouse who would want that kind of marriage.